


Resolution

by radioqueen



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Banter, Cocaine, Consensual Sex, Couch theft, Crack Fic, Cunnilingus, Doctor/Patient, Drugged Sex, Drunk Sex, Drunk Shenanigans, Drunkenness, F/M, Femdom, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, Holidays, Milwaukee, Mind Manipulation, New Year's Eve, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Past Tense, Recreational Drug Use, Semi-Public Sex, Thank GOD the cast and crew don't read fanfiction, They can only live in one of four locations and Milwaukee makes the most sense, Working title: Damien and Joan's Milwaukee Mayhem, fingers crossed, sort of literally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 04:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9107005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioqueen/pseuds/radioqueen
Summary: Damien may be an ass, but his logic is sound: Not committing felonies or having sex with your patients is a great resolution.But first, you have to actually be doing those things to make the resolution.





	1. Chapter 1

Joan was fighting the last-minute grocery store crowds when her phone rang. Damien. Of course. She couldn’t have a single night to herself, could she? She thought about not answering, but then she remembered what happened the last time she ignored him, and that pushed her phone up to her ear.

“What, Damien?”

“Come over.”

“No.”

“What? Why not?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “Didn’t we have fun last week?”

“That was a mistake. It was… unprofessional.” Not to mention incredibly unethical, even if Damien wasn’t a typical patient.

“Yeah, well, can’t undo the past, Doc. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you should go back and repeat the past over and over again!” Joan slammed a box of tampons into the cart.

“Ohhhh. Whoops. I guess it’s a good thing you’re the doctor and I’m just the patient, huh?”

“Is that really how you’ve been interpreting it?”

“Nah, I just wanted to make you squirm. You’re… cute when you squirm. Wish I was there to see it in person. Where are you? Grocery store?”

She looked around, suddenly expecting him to pop up out of nowhere like he had a habit of doing.

“Oh, calm down,” he said irritably.

“I am calm,” she snapped.

“I can hear you looking for me. I’m at home. But if I were out looking for you…  Trader Joe’s?”

“Metro Market.”

“Metro Market on a Friday night? Oh, right, you’re probably running low on tampons…”

“Damien!” She said it more sharply than she meant to, but she decided a moment later that he deserved it. “I’m not coming over.”

“Not even if I’m in crisis again?”

She took a deep breath, trying to keep her voice level. _“Are_ you in crisis, Damien?”

“Oh, yeah. Major crisis happening over here.”

“Is the crisis happening in your pants again?”

There was a pause.

“Will you still come over if I say yes?”

Joan sighed. “Damien…”

“Just come over. I have a present for you.”

“The same present you tried to give me for Christmas?”

“No. Well, that too, but that’s not the main present.”

“What is the present?”

“You’ll find out when you get here. You don’t have to actually take it. I think we’ve established I can’t make you do anything major against your will. Just come over and see what I have for you.”

“I swear to God, Damien, if it’s handcuffs—”

“What’s wrong with handcuffs?”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I’m kidding! It’s not handcuffs. Just come over. You don’t want to spend New Year’s Eve alone, right?”

“Maybe I like being alone.”

“You don’t. Not on holidays. Besides, do you really want to leave me unsupervised tonight? I was thinking about going downtown. Drunk people are so easy to manipulate…”

Joan sighed and threw a box of condoms into her basket.  “I’ll be there in twenty,” she said.

“Okay, Dr. B. See you.”

She stared at the foot cream for a solid minute, her phone in hand, trying to figure out if she was making a terrible mistake. She didn’t even need foot cream.


	2. Chapter 2

She still hadn’t made up her mind about whether to go to Damien’s during the following events:

  * Fighting her way past dozens of cranky last-minute shoppers and two broken bottles of champagne
  * Loading the conveyor belt
  * Checking out
  * Zipping her coat up to her nose
  * Loading her groceries into her trunk
  * Fighting her way out of the icy parking lot
  * Fighting her way onto I-94
  * Fighting her way off I-94
  * Turning down Damien’s street
  * Pulling up to Damien’s apartment
  * Getting out of her car
  * Digging through the trunk for the condoms and a bottle of champagne
  * Crunching up the salted steps
  * Knocking on his door



But then he opened his door with a whoosh of warm air and that stupid cologne he always wore, and he _smiled_ when he saw her. The little punk.

He was barefooted, wearing boxers and a tank top. Thankfully, his boxers were fully closed. Joan wanted to come in, but she was pretty sure she’d secretly wanted that all along. He stepped out of the way, and she squeaked inside, taking off her wet boots just inside the door while he turned the deadbolt.

“You’re late,” he said. “Traffic on I-94?”

She threw her parka at him. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stalk me.”

“It’s not my fault you’re too tech-dumb to turn off the app I installed.” He opened the coat closet and threw her coat on the floor of it. “Give me the champagne. What’s in the other bag?”

“None of your business.”

While he was stashing the champagne in the fridge, she shoved some condoms into her pants pocket and hung her coat up properly. When she padded in her thick socks to the living room, her usual Huan Xi order was waiting for her on the coffee table.

“You know, I almost didn’t come over,” she said.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“But you ordered food for me anyway? You don’t even like _shui zhu rou pian_.”

He shrugged and slurped a noodle out of his takeout container. “Yeah, and they laughed at me when I tried to order it.”

“I’m amazed they delivered to you at all. How many times have you willed them out of making you pay?”

“A lot.”

“And your abilities don’t work over the phone.”

“I’m offended, Doc! Are you saying my natural charm isn’t enough to win people over?”

“Yes.”

“Well… it worked on you, didn’t it?”

She didn’t have anything to say to that, so she grabbed a dumpling.

“Hey, I’m not running the heat so you can get heat stroke on my dime,” Damien said. “Why don’t you get comfy, Doc?”

She had decided to strip even before she felt the familiar presence in her mind, mostly to avoid spilling broth on herself, but she played along. She pulled off her sweater and laid it over the back of the only chair in the room, then unzipped her pants.

“You need a second chair,” she said. “Or a couch.”

“Why? You’re the only company I ever have.”

“And I don’t deserve a chair?”

“I’m just saying, last time you didn’t mind using the bed for all our… non-vertical activities.”

“Damien, there’s no excuse for someone your age not to have more than one real seat in their living room.” She dropped into the recliner before he could steal it, grabbing her food off the table.

“We can’t all be fancy doctors like you.”

“What do you do for work again, Damien?”

“I don’t. People just seem to want to give me money for free.”

“And yet no one wants to give you a couch for free?”

“Guess I never wanted one badly enough. Isn’t that how my power works?”

“As far as I can tell, yes. That is how your _ability_ works.”

“I’ll try to come up with a good enough reason to want a couch, then.”

He turned on the TV, a 50-inch flatscreen perched on top of a cardboard box full of books, and flipped to ABC. They ate in silence while watching Ryan Seacrest. When Joan finally pushed her carton back onto the table, Damien disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a Ziploc bag full of white powder.

“What the hell, Damien?”

“Happy new year.” Damien sat cross-legged on the floor. “I finally found a new dealer. She’s a chemistry professor by day. Totally _Breaking Bad_.”

“Never seen it.”

“Well, it’s about meth, but same basic idea. This stuff is totally pure. I ‘wanted’ her to tell me all about her process and stuff. It’s legit.”

“Good for you.”

“You want to do it with me? I’m in a sharing mood.”

“No. I know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah? What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to pull me into your self-destruction so you can feel better about it.”

“Sounds pretty Freudian.”

“It’s not. It’s just selfish.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not what I’m doing. I just want to share a good time with you.” He poured a little of the white powder onto the table and resealed the bag. “Plus I think it would be hot to see you do something illegal. Just being honest.”

“Honesty? That’s a new and unexpected tact for you, Damien.”

“I’m just getting a head start on my resolution: be more honest with my therapist.” He slipped his hand into her underwear. “What about you? What are your big resolutions for this new year?”

“Drink less. Eat less sugar. Stop having sex with my most annoying patient.”

“If you do coke with me tonight, you could add ‘Stop doing illegal substances with your most annoying patient’ to the list.” His fingers teased their way through the thick hair until they found her clit. “Should be an easy resolution to to keep. I mean, I'm gonna try to make you break it, but I bet you can resist me.”

She pursed her lips, refusing to let on how much she liked his touch.

“Come on, Doc. You were in grad school for what, 30 years?”

“Six.”

“Didn’t you ever snort Adderall?”

“No. I took my Adderall by mouth, like a normal human being who likes not being dead.”

“But it was illegal Adderall, wasn’t it?”

When she didn’t answer, he poked her in the side. “Heyyyy. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” she said reluctantly. “It was Mark’s. He gave me a few every semester to help me get through finals. My clinical psychology Ph.D. program was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life, especially because I was also working for the A.M. all throughout it.”

“But you HAVE done illegal drugs.”

“Yes, but I hardly think the Adderall counts. Give that to me.”

She slid onto the floor next to him and unwrapped the razor blade. After a moment of chopping the cocaine more finely, she stuck her pinky into the powder and tasted it.

“It is pretty pure,” she said. “How recently have you done cocaine? I haven’t done it since undergrad.”

“I don’t know. A few months ago, I guess.”

She sorted the powder into four even lines; Damien poured two shots.

“Jesus, those are the skinniest rails I’ve ever seen.”

“We don’t know our tolerance. You’re probably used to cocaine cut with all sorts of fillers. Better to do multiple lines than overdose.”

“You’re the doc.”

“Damn right.”

With that, she took her piece of straw and snorted one of the lines. She refused to cough or otherwise show weakness, even as the powder hit her mucous membranes. Damien stared at her in awe, apparently rendered speechless.

“Whoa, Dr. B. is a total bad girl!” he said when he could finally speak again. “I’m so fucking hard right now.”

“Why is that my problem?” She gulped her shot without flinching and then set her shot glass on the table, upside down.

“It’s not a problem. It’s a compliment.” He followed her lead, snorting a line off the coffee table. “Ugh. The drip is always disgusting.”

“Stop complaining.”

“Or what?" He downed his shot. "You gonna make me?”

She pushed her underwear down her legs and grabbed him by the hair. “Do you know why this is my favorite part of our out-of-office meetings?”

“Because you like when people eat you out?”

“No. Although that’s not a bad guess.” She shoved his face between her thighs. “It’s my favorite part because it’s the only time _you ever stop talking_.”

He winked at her, probably just to aggravate her, and then dove right in. The initial coke numbness exploded into hot energy right as his tongue found her, making her gasp in surprise. She’d forgotten what cocaine felt like. No wonder Freud had been such a big fan. Damien grabbed onto her hips to pull himself in. She had the urge to rub her breasts, but she quickly fought it and smacked him lightly on the head.

“Stop it.”

He raised his head, still smirking. “What? I like to keep you on your toes.”

“It’s annoying.”

“It’s hot as fuck when you resist me,” he said. “It’s also hot as fuck when you do what I want. I win either way.”

“Damien?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the hell up.” She shoved his head back down.

With a pleased grunt, he licked her eagerly. He always seemed to like when she ordered around. It was probably an Oedipal complex, the result of losing his mother to self-inflicted abandonment during his formative years, that made him want Joan to—No, she wasn’t going to ponder that right then. She was off the clock.

“Good boy,” she said.

His little whimper was totally worth it. Without looking, he reached up and dipped two fingers into the leftover powder on the table, then slid his fingers inside her. It was a novel sensation, and it took her a moment to decide if she liked it or not. She decided that she did, clenching around his fingers to show him how much.

“Unnhhh,” he moaned. “Uh huh….”

She pushed him onto his back and straddled his face before she realized what he was doing. “Knock it off, Damien,” she said, less angry than her tone suggested. “If you do it one more time, I’m leaving.”

He pushed her up so he could speak.

“I can’t always help it!” he protested.

“I can feel the difference.”

“Oh shit, really?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“Are you lying?”

She felt the compulsion to answer honestly, the fiercest want yet, but she struggled past it. “No.”

“Oh man. You’re gonna make me cum in my pants if you keep talking like that.”

She laughed. “You’d better hurry up and make me orgasm, then.”

With a frustrated groan, he pulled her onto his mouth again. She rode his face, something she probably wouldn’t have done if she weren’t high, but it was more fun than anticipated. She wanted to talk dirty, but she couldn’t think of anything properly raunchy to say.

“Yes, Damien. Good boy. That’s it. God, yes! Keep licking me.”

As lame as it felt leaving her mouth, it might as well have been a spell cast on Damien. He writhed underneath her, his tongue lapping frantically at her. His enthusiasm alone made her incredibly excited, and the coke didn’t hurt. She pulled his hair hard as she climaxed, crying out.

"Yes, Damien, yes!"

He scrambled up as soon as she let him. There was a wet spot on his boxers.

“Condoms?” he asked.

“My pants pocket.”

He tried to pull one out, and the other eleven followed.

“Jesus, Dr. B. How much sex are you planning on having? I appreciate the confidence in my stamina, but…”

“Who says all of those are for you?”

He laughed. “You don’t get out enough for them to be for anyone but me.”

He was right, but she just pressed her lips together.

“Considering how fast you finish, I think it makes sense to buy them in bulk.”

“Ouch.” He gave her a reproachful look. “Shouldn't be a problem tonight.”

He did another line, then gestured for her to do the same while rolling the condom on. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed suit with the powder. As soon as she finished, Damien pulled her up by the hips and shoved inside her.

“If you had a couch, this would be way easier.” She glared at him over her shoulder.

“I don't mind doggy style.” He pushed her over the coffee table. "It's a decent view. Oh man..."

She was too high to orgasm again, even though she wanted to. He finished way sooner than she would have liked, although not as quickly as the first time they'd had sex. Thankfully. He flopped backward, stretching out on the floor.

"Shit, that was good," he sighed. "Get dressed.”

“Are you kicking me out already?”

He disappeared into his bedroom and came out zipping up a dirty pair of blue jeans. “‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.’”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“To steal a couch.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You want to come along? Be my… adult supervision?”

“What exactly do you expect adult supervision do? Stop you from stealing a couch?”

"Ideally, drive the getaway van."

"I don't have a van."

"Guess we have to steal that, too."

"I'm not helping you commit felonies, Damien!"

“Look at it this way—you’re my conscience. I’m not gonna force you to come along, but if you don’t, who knows what trouble I could get into? I could steal cop cars, break into stores, maybe even murder people… and you know the police would just let me walk away. At least if you’re there, you can stop me from getting into real trouble, right? Make sure I steal from the rich instead of the poor?”

“You’re an ass.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m still the closest thing to a friend you have, aren’t I?”

“Shut up, Damien.” Joan stepped into her pants. "I already regret this."


	3. Chapter 3

Outside, flurries sprinkled the streets. Ambient crowd noises carried from downtown, but most people were hurrying indoors. Joan wobbled on a crack in the pavement, nearly falling over into the empty street. Damien grabbed her by the hood of her parka and pulled her back onto the sidewalk.

“Jesus, Doc. Do we need to cut you off already?”

“It’s just icy,” she protested.

“Not that icy. Actually, it's not as cold as they said it was going to be. Seriously, don’t try to outdrink me. You’re like… what, five feet tall?”

"As if you're seven feet tall." She rolled her eyes. “What store are we robbing?”

“Who says we’re robbing a store?” Damien took a swig of whiskey. “Maybe I’m planning on convincing some random family to drive their couch to my place.”

"Damien..."

"If you're going to be a party pooper, you can go home."

"I thought you wanted me along for adult supervision."

"To be honest, I had a different meaning of the word 'adult' in mind when I said that. Just... drink more, or something." He thrust the bottle into her arms, nearly sloshing it onto her.

“We probably shouldn’t be mixing alcohol and cocaine.” Joan took a swig from the bottle anyway.

“You don’t know?” He laughed incredulously. “Aren’t you the doctor?”

“I don’t think my psychopharmacology lecturer had these sorts of substances in mind when she developed our syllabus.” Joan took another mouthful and then handed the bottle back. “I could tell you all about how monamine oxidase inhibitors interact with cheese, but apparently Dr. Ansley didn’t think we needed to know about mixing cocaine and whiskey.”

“She sounds like a square,” Damien said.

“Most psychologists are squares, one way or another,” Joan said.

“You’re less of a square than you pretend, though,” he said. “But you‘ve never done Jack and coke?”

“I’ve only ever mixed whiskey with the soft drink Coke. Wait, that reminds me.” She pulled her recorder out of her pocket and hit the red button. “December 31st, 2015. It’s about—" She checked her watch. "8:30 p.m. I’m under the influence of approximately… 200 milligrams of cocaine via nasal inhalation and at least four shots of whiskey. If you find my dead body, be sure to intensely question my patient, Damien… uh, what’s your last name?”

“I’m not telling.”

“Fine." She turned off the recorder and returned it to her pocket. "But either way, now you have a good reason to keep me alive tonight.”

“Not to be too creepy, but—”

“Too late.”

“BUT if I wanted something to happen to you, don’t you think I’d just take your recorder and chuck it in the lake?”

“It’s the principle that matters.”

“Or what if I just mind controlled the police into—” Damien stopped suddenly, staring at something across the street.

“What?” Joan asked.

“Come on."

“Where are we going?”

He grabbed her hand.

“Damien! Where are we going?”

He pushed inside a bar, dragging her with him.

“Damien!”

“You ever done karaoke, Dr. B.?”

“No.”

“Good! It’s your lucky night. Here, hide the bottle in your purse.”

The bottle of whiskey clanked against the chilled champagne bottle, which was resting in Joan’s oversized purse. The bouncer let them past without a cover charge or ID check, and he said nothing about the alcohol he'd just seen them smuggle into Joan's bag. Damien waited with Joan while she checked her parka.

“Perfect.” Damien sauntered up to a couple in the most private booth in the corner. “Hey, I think you really want to move.”

The couple rose without comment. Joan slid into the side facing the stage, and Damien slid in next to her. He unzipped his coat and pushed it off, revealing his usual black hoodie underneath. Joan could still smell his cologne, but now he also smelled like fresh snow and just a hint of sex. She took the bottle of whiskey back out of her purse and began chugging it.

"Hey!" He pried the bottle away from her and set it on the table. "Chill, Doc. There are like, five people here. It's nothing to freak out over."

She didn't say anything.

“We’re agreed that we’re making fun of everyone but each other, right?” he asked. "Wait, scratch that, I am  _definitely_ making fun of you while you sing."

“I wasn’t planning on making fun of anyone,” Joan said.

“Oh, come on!”

“I don’t want to make fun of people!”

“Fine. But you are gonna sing karaoke with me, right?”

“What?”

“Karaoke! It's kind of the reason we're here, in a karaoke bar.”

“What happened to stealing a couch?”

“Oh, we’re still definitely going to do that. We’re just doing some karaoke first.” He squinted and leaned in to look at her. "What's wrong with you? Your face is all red." 

Flustered by the sudden attention, Joan did the only logical thing she could think of: She kissed him. He started to jerk away in surprise, but then he relaxed and kissed her in return. His tongue was curious, polite in its querying, but she fended it off with bared teeth until he gave up. They surfaced for air when the waitress placed tiny square napkins in front of them.

"What are you two drinking tonight?" she asked in a monotone.

"Two brandy old fashioneds," Joan said. "And water for both of us."

"I'll be right back."

"Weird," Damien said.

"I'll drink yours if you don't like it."

"No, I meant, that's the first time we've ever kissed."

Joan didn't feel like talking about it, so she simply kissed him again. They ignored the waitress when she returned, and to her credit, she didn't interrupt their impromptu makeout session other than to leave their drinks in front of them. Damien groped Joan through her blouse, his hand eventually working its way to the waistband of her pants.

"Restrooms?" she asked.

"No one can see us." He unbuttoned her pants and slipped his hand in. "Oh fuck, you're so slippery, oh man, fuck..."

He turned his body in the booth, shielding her from the rest of the bar, even though no one was remotely within their line of vision. He kissed her hard and fast, his fingers easily entering her as she squirmed. She wanted to tell him to stop, but not really. They were both still fully dressed, and it was a 21+ venue. It was hardly the worst case of public indecency. Actually, she wanted him to take her on stage and fuck her hard in front of a massive crowd, with the audience packed in close enough to reach out and touch her—

"Goddammit, Damien," she sighed.

"You know you like it." He bit her earlobe. "Besides, I thought you could tell the difference."

She brushed her fingers over his zipper, feeling his firmness underneath. He pressed into her hand, groaning softly into her ear. She reached into his pants and circled her hand around him.

"Just... refrain from making me do anything you know I wouldn't want to."

"Ha. As if I could."

Joan was getting drunker by the minute, making it harder and harder for her to orgasm. His desperate want for her to climax finally helped her over the edge, and she threw her head back so hard it hit the wooden wall. He kept kissing her as she slid down in her seat. She kept jerking him off, and he exploded into her hand a moment later. She wiped her hand on the inside of his T-shirt and then doused it in hand sanitizer.

"Holy shit." Damien wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "Wow. But don't think you're getting out of karaoke that easily."

Joan chugged down her cocktail. “God, I hope they have Tupac.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

The rest of the night was a blur. Joan had an impression of being numb, warm, and happy, even as she made a fool of herself rapping on stage. She had mental snapshots of setting marshmallows on fire, falling repeatedly on her backside on the skating rink (had she even been wearing skates?), eating macaroni and cheese pizza, eating part of the paper plate her pizza was served on, bumming cigarettes off hipsters—

“You awake yet, Dr. B.?” Damien poked her. “Come on, wake up. I’m bored.”

Joan realized she was curled up on top of him... on the roof of her office building. “What the hell?”

“You said you wanted to watch the fireworks from up here.”

“Can we even see the fireworks from here?” She frowned.

“I don’t know,” Damien said. “It stopped snowing, so maybe? Anyway, this is where you wanted to be.”

“What time is it?”

“10:38.”

“It’s not even midnight yet?” she asked in surprise.

“Nope.”

“Time is moving so slowly… Why do I have memories of breaking and entering? Oh god, not the Habitat for Humanity ReStore!”

He laughed at her. “Drink your Gatorade, Dr. B.”

She looked down and realized she was holding an unopened bottle in her hand.

“See? I might be an asshole, but I take care of you when you’re drunk.”

She cracked the bottle open and took a sip. “I should go home. To bed.”

“Nah, the night’s just getting started. You just need to do another line.”

“I probably shouldn’t. Stimulants and depressants don’t mix well.”

“Uh, I’ve been mixing them all night, not to mention for… I don’t know, ten years? Not all the time, but yeah. Your problem is that you did, like, a bump four hours ago and then chugged most of a bottle of whiskey. Plus three brandy old fashioneds. Plus that half a glass of wine our new friend left unattended.”

“Ughhh.” She closed her eyes. The roof was still rocking a little, and her bladder was complaining.

“What I don’t get is, you were bad enough to do cocaine in college, but you never mixed it with alcohol?”

“I didn’t drink much until I was of age, and it isn’t as if I did cocaine all the time,” she said. “My junior year, I had a roommate who was the Burning Man type. Some of her friends had good connections, and I was intensely curious about a few drugs, so I… tried them.”

“So what all have you tried? Meth? Heroin?”

“No, no. I’ve tried cocaine, MDMA, LSD, and cannabis. Again, not all at once. I was more curious about their effects on the human brain than I was about getting high. At the time, I thought the best way to study those effects was to experiment on myself. So I did those substances a few times, and I haven’t done them since.”

“Bullshit. You know way too much about coke.”

“That’s because I research everything in great detail before trying it. Especially illicit substances that could get me arrested.”

He laughed out loud. “Research? Did you go to the library and check out ‘How to Do Coke for Dummies’?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There are plenty of resources online.”

“They had the internet when you were in college?”

“Damien, if you don’t stop joking about me being old—”

“Maybe I just like older women.”

“I hardly think four years counts as ‘older.’”

“Hey, I take what I can get. Not many people can resist me.”

“At least you don’t prey on people who can’t say no.”

“Yeah, that’s a turnoff. I just want people to be with me because they want to.”

She took a long gulp of Gatorade to avoid answering.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “You might not like me, but you like having sex with me.”

“It’s... not the worst sex I’ve ever had.”

“So generous with your compliments, Dr. B.! Hey, do you still have the champagne?”

She opened her purse and handed him the bottle. “Here.”

Damien popped the cork out of the bottle, holding it away from him so the foam would splash on the roof rather than his lap. He slurped the remaining foam off and then turned the bottle up to drink out of it. Joan held her hand out, but he waved it away.

“Excuse me, I paid for that,” she said.

“You got blackout drunk, almost set yourself on fire, puked into Lake Michigan, and then passed out on your office roof. I’m not giving you more booze unless you snort another rail first.”

“Seriously? Off what?”

“Credit card? Skin?”

“That’s disgusting. Next you’ll probably tell me to use a rolled up dollar bill.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know how much bacteria is on the average dollar bill? You could get hepatitis from that.” She rose unsteadily, her joints popping loudly as she moved. “Wow. Maybe I am old. Sitting on a hard surface is a lot less fun than I remember.”

Damien cracked up at that. “Hey, Dr. B., I have something hard for you to sit on…”

“Shut up, Damien.”

One elevator ride later, Joan unlocked her office and let Damien inside. She locked the door behind them and dumped her coat and purse on the couch before flipping the light on in her bathroom. The light hummed faintly. Joan didn’t bother closing the door to pee.

“We can use the coffee table,” she said.

“Now we’re talking.” Damien shoved the magazines onto the floor.

“Really, Damien? Was that remotely necessary?”

“No, it was just fun.”

While Joan washed her hands, Damien set the bottle of champagne on his side of the coffee table and poured out the last of the cocaine.

“That’s all that’s left?” Joan asked in surprise as she came out, wiping her hands with a paper towel.

“Yeah. I only had a gram.”

“There was more than that when we left your apartment, though. I don’t remember you doing more.”

“That’s because you’ve been running around completely shitfaced for the past two hours.” He elbowed her in the side. “Just kidding. I did a line while you were getting the pizza.”

“Oh, that’s why you weren’t hungry…”

“Yeah, sorry if you thought I let you eat the rest of my pizza out of the goodness of my heart.”

“I like to think I would never, ever make that assumption, Damien.”

“Good thinking. Now, do one last rail with me before the year ends and you have to pretend to keep your resolution.”

She watched him sort the powder into two piles with his debit card, his thumb covering most of his name except the letters “RO.”

“Why not?” She grabbed a piece of paper from the printer, tearing it into smaller sections as she returned. “At this point, it seems silly to take the moral high road. For the rest of the year, anyway.”

“You’ve still got an hour left.” He took a scrap of paper from her and rolled it into a tube. “Lots of time to make some fun, last-minute mistakes.”

He went first, then held her hair while she inhaled her line.

“Good girl.” He wiped her nose with his sleeve whiles she sniffed the residual powder. “You’re looking perkier already.”

“I’ll take that champagne now.”

He handed the bottle over without comment. She _was_ feeling better—instantly less sleepy and hazy from the whiskey. She washed the bitter coke aftertaste away with the dry, prickly champagne.

“What do you want to do with your last hour?” Damien asked.

“‘Last hour’? Good grief, Damien. That makes it sound like you’re going to murder me at the stroke of midnight.”

“‘Course not, Dr. B.! A good therapist is hard to find.”

“I’m glad you find my services so valuable.”

He grinned that shit-eating grin at her. “Come on, Dr. B. That’s not the only thing I like about you. You’re fun to talk to.”

“If that’s the case, my new year’s resolution is to be less fun to talk to.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to waste the eleventh hour talking.”

“Thank God for small miracles.” She pulled the last condom out of her pocket. “Good lord! How the hell did we—?”

“Nah, you gave a bunch away to those hipsters we met when we were trespassing in the park.” He tore open the packaging. “You gave everyone cute little lectures about pregnancy and STDs.”

“Was that before or after I vomited in Lake Michigan?”

“Both. You even told the lesbian couple they could cut the condom to make a dental dam. I was impressed by your sex knowledge.”

“God... “ She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Please tell me I hallucinated the vandalism.”

“No, but you didn’t actually participate. You kept trying to get us to behave.”

“So much for adult supervision…”

“Hey, you tried.” He pulled on the condom. “Ready for your last fuck of 2015?”

She peeled her blouse off. “Could you possibly be any cruder?”

“Sure, I can try.”

She rolled her eyes as she threw herself back onto the couch, her coat and purse sliding onto the floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever had sex with anyone quite as sophomoric as you.”

“Seems fitting, seeing how I never graduated high school.”

She groaned. “You really know how to turn a girl on.”

“Don’t be a snob.” He fell on top of her, bracing his arms on either side of her head. “You don’t get to be an elitist bitch about the people you’re fucking. Besides, I do okay for myself. I never have to worry about money. I read plenty of stuff—Hemingway, Kerouac, McCarthy...”

Joan grimaced. “Stop talking, Damien.”

He rubbed against her, teasing her until she grabbed him by the hips and pulled him inside her. “Ahh. There we go. You know, I never noticed before, but this is a pretty nice couch…”

Joan pushed his face into her cleavage and held him there. “What part of ‘stop talking’ is difficult for you to understand?”

“Mmmph.” He kissed all over her exposed skin and bit her nipple through her bra. “Bossy, Dr. B.”

“Shut the hell up and fuck me before next year, Damien.”

That time, he finally obeyed. She wrapped her legs around his waist and slid her fingers into his hair, clutching tight. Damien didn’t complain. He simply thrust harder and harder, as if testing something. Her, perhaps?

“It doesn’t even creak,” Damien said gleefully.

“What?”

“Never mind. Man, all those people who told me I needed to be on a therapist’s couch… they had no idea.”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “I swear to god, Damien…”

He snorted, sending a huff of hot air over her hand. "Sorry."

~

They were pulling their clothes back on when the first firework boomed outside the window.

“Where is that coming from?” Damien peeked out the blinds, his undershirt in hand. “Not Red Arrow Park.”

“No, they haven’t done fireworks for a few years. This is an unofficial show.” Joan buttoned her pants. “An illegal show, actually.”

“Ooooh.” Damien yanked his undershirt on and stepped into his shoes. “I wanna see this. Think we’ll see anyone get arrested?”

“I seriously doubt anyone will be arrested,” Joan said. “It’s just a fine.”

“What kind of fine are we talking about? $50?”

“I don’t know. Around $1,000, I think?”

“Holy shit.”

Once they cleared out of the office, Joan locked it and stepped onto the elevator. Damien hurried after her, and she mashed the down button as the doors closed.

“Wait, where are you going?” he demanded.

“Home. I feel like reorganizing my entire house.”

“But the fireworks! We were gonna watch them on the roof.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Well… then, can I?”

Against her better judgement, Joan took her office building key off the ring and handed it to him. “Here. I have a spare, but you’d better put it in my mailbox the very next time you drive by my house to stalk me.”

“Sure thing.” He winked at her.

“Don’t make a copy.”

“Yeah, I’m probably going to anyway.”

“How did I know?” She sighed. “It’s not like you couldn’t get into my office plenty of other ways if you really wanted to.”

“Aw, you believe in me. Thanks, Dr. B.”

The elevator dinged, and Joan stepped off without a word.

“Happy new year, Doc!” Damien yelled after her.

She didn’t respond.

“Fine! Be like that. You still have to go to my place to get your car!”

The elevator doors closed, separating them from each other. Probably for the best, Joan thought as she trudged through the snow. She’d get her car in the morning, when she was less drunk—and when Damien was less awake.


	5. Epilogue

Damien must have returned the key at some point before Monday morning. Joan was pleased but slightly suspicious. Nonetheless, she stuck the key back on her ring and drove to work. She arrived at her office at five til eight, unlocked the door and—

She froze for at least ten seconds.

Her couch was missing. Not only that, but her coffee table was also gone, along with most of her magazines and one potted plant. She set her paper coffee cup on Sarah’s desk and fished her phone out of her pocket with furiously shaking hands.

Damien yawned into the phone. “What up, Dr. B.?”

“Damien, where is my couch?”

“I’m sleeping on it currently. Or I was, before you called.”

“And the coffee table?”

“It was evidence. I was doing you a favor.”

“And my ficus?!”

“Your _what_?”

“My potted plant!”

“Oh, right. My apartment needed a woman’s touch. Some decoration. This thing is fake, right?”

“Damien, you have exactly one hour to bring all of my belongings back.”

“No way! Do you know how much work it was to get all that stuff to my place? Well, not for me, personally. I had six guys move it all for me.”

“Then you’d better get them to bring it back.”

“Tell you what. You pick up some more condoms and come over here, and—”

She hung up on him.

“I don’t believe this!” she exclaimed to the empty office.

“Good morning, Dr. Bright,” Sarah said, walking in from behind Joan with a coffee of her own and a marked down package of Kringle. “Happy New Year. Did you—oh my god, were we robbed?”

“Technically speaking, yes.” Joan shoved her phone back into her pocket. “I don’t have a nine o’clock, right? No last minute additions?”

“No, Dr. Bright.”

“Good. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To buy a new couch. And coffee table. And ficus.”

“Should I call the police?”

“No, that’s not necessary. I know who it was. It was... one of my clients.”

“Damien?” Sarah guessed. “And you’re not going to press charges?!”

“No. That would be… counterproductive.” Joan declined a call from Damien without looking at her phone. “That’s exactly what he wants. I’m just going to enforce my boundaries better in our next session. It’s fine, Sarah. I was thinking about redecorating anyway.”

Sarah, who balanced Joan’s books, looked skeptical.

“New year, new office,” Joan said.

“Whatever you say, Dr. Bright.”

“Just hold down the fort for me. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

By the time Joan reached the ground level, she had six missed calls and two voicemails from Damien.

He would stalk her more intensely for a while, and she’d have to resist his manipulation more than usual. But that wouldn’t be hard, in the grand scheme of things. Neither would avoiding temptation to repeat their New Year’s Eve adventure.

The hard part would be pretending like it never happened. Joan shook her head as she pushed past the door onto the street. She was not looking forward to Damien’s next unexpected session.


End file.
